A Ribbon in Many Lights

PROLOGUE

It took me many years to finally get down and start writing this narrative. At various times I have related isolated parts of my past to Miriam, to friends, and, when they were old enough, also to Tony and Katherine. I have, however, never until now put it together in a continuous, and I hope coherent, chronicle. Both Tony and Katherine have often asked me to write it all down. When my brother Erwin’s son Michael visited us a few years ago, we came to talk about his father’s and my experiences during the war; he then also suggested that I put it to paper. After that I have thought about it more seriously, and finally set about doing it.

There was a major challenge I had to face: this was that I have never kept a diary — I now wish I had — , though such a document might not have survived intact up to the present without bits and pieces having gone astray along the way. In other words, instead of referring to reams of notes, I had to delve deep into the farthest recesses of my memory in order to pull out the details. As it turned out, this was a rewarding and fascinating exercise, during which I was amazed how small subtleties which I had completely forgotten on the immediately conscious level emerged again one after another on the surface, after so to speak digging in their surroundings. I then also started to carry a small notebook on me most of the time. This allowed me to jot down details or whole episodes as and when they suddenly surfaced again — and that could be anywhere and anytime. It was then easy to add these where they belonged in what I had already written.

There are also some areas where I am not too sure whether I do remember correctly. In some cases I did some research in order to get my facts straight, but in others this was not possible. In these my decision was to relate things the way I recall them, often stating my uncertainty. This applies particularly to isolated self-contained episodes, some of which I could not place reliably in the chronology of events, not remembering whether they occurred in one place or another, or during one year or the next. Usually there was no way to find out. All I can say is that I wrote things down as I remember them. It is quite possible that anybody else who was with me might have told of the events differently; but I am quite sure that this would only be in some of the details.

Another complication in writing this was making it an interesting account, because the events of my life, after an initial slow and carefree period, started with a bang, but then in a way fizzle out at the end. This is not the way I would have chosen had I wanted to write a fictional biography. But this is the way they happened.

The reader will find some seemingly irrelevant little anecdotes, trivia and details along the way. This was done for two reasons, one so as not to discard some of my memories — this is a selfish reason — and the other in order to give my narrative some of the flavour of the background and milieu of the times and how they affected me.

Telling the story of my life as it passed through Germany of World War II needed here and there some asides in order to explain the constraints of living under a totalitarian government, particularly during difficult times. I hope I have done this without oversimplifying the issues too much or using tenuous arguments. I do believe that it is very difficult for someone who has lived all his or her life in a western democracy to fully comprehend the fears and restrictions a totalitarian system imposes. I have experienced it twice, under the Nazis and under the Russian occupation of Berlin shortly after the war. The reader should, however, appreciate that these annotations are based on memories from times when I was a child. Similar explanatory comments were needed on some aspects of apartheid South Africa.

In relating the various events of my past, I have also become aware how some of my experiences may have moulded my likes and dislikes as well as possibly some aspects of my personality. I have added some of these insights, knowing full well that I am playing the amateur psychologist in this. However, it may give my family and friends a little more understanding of and patience with some of my quirks and idiosyncrasies — at least I hope so.

When I was writing the account of my stay on the island of Usedom, it occurred to me that readers might pronounce this in their minds as YOOS-dom, when everybody knows that it is OO-ze-dom. So, to make sure that everybody is included in everybody, I added the pronunciation. This then led to adding it to various other words, mainly geographical names, where an obvious English pronunciation is quite different from the actual, or local, one.

My family asked me to include in this document all the details I can remember of my family’s history. Although these details are on the whole quite patchy, they are nonetheless too long to include them in the main body of my chronicle. They would interrupt the flow of the narrative too much. They are also too long for footnotes; I have therefore added them as endnotes. Here again, I am in places not too sure whether I have all the facts absolutely right; I have indicated this in most cases.

I also found that writing an autobiography is a very intimate and personal undertaking. It strips away one’s privacy — so that, as I approached the end of this narrative, I began to feel more and more like having taken off all my clothes in public, while everybody else is standing around wrapped in black cloaks up to their noses, staring at me. But that is probably the nature of the beast.

For most of my life the main products of my writing endeavours were management consultants’ proposals and reports. So while I was writing this narrative I often had to make a conscious effort to avoid the style one uses in such documents, which includes deliberately refraining from emotional or subjective words and expressions. Such a style may be in order there but would make a history like this very dull reading indeed. So I hope that I have succeeded in rectifying this, at least in part.

This narrative was at first meant to be only a short account of my experiences during the war and in camp afterwards. However, it grew and grew to something much bigger, finally even including many photographs. The selection of these is quite patchy, though, because there are many periods for which I do not have any pictorial records at all. Many of the photos are also of poor quality; some have been taken with a box camera and others are based on photographic copies of old prints. In the two chapters describing life in refugee camps in Denmark I have included a few sketches which I drew shortly after leaving the camps.

I would like to thank Miriam for her forbearance and patience in letting me write this without resentment while there were more fruitful things I could have done with my time.

I

ON THE FARM

The only way to get to our farm was along a dirt road. For the last few miles the open veldt of the Little Karroo spread out on its left, while on the right an irrigation canal kept close to it, underscoring the parched character of the land. Beyond the canal lay the farms which drew their water from it — when there was any. The veldt was covered with a sparse growth of dry grey-green low shrubs, here and there a small flat-topped thorny tree and stands of prickly pear. The land of the farms on the other side of the canal had a few green irrigated fields, but otherwise did not look much different. All around were low mountains shimmering blue in the distance, covered, between occasional rocky outcrops, with the same vegetation. Very little of human habitation was visible with the exception of an occasional isolated group of the classic round mud huts with thatched roofs of African farm workers, and, a bit further back along the road just across the canal, the farm house of the Jordaans and, even further back, the general store of Mr. Ebert, nestling among trees, which seemed to thrive on the seepage from the canal.

The turnoff to our farm was on the right, leading over a small bridge across the canal and through a gate. The approach continued on a dirt track, which at first ran on level ground through the veldt past some irrigated fields of lucerne, and then led gently down a long slope past terraced fields, again of lucerne, with a row of apricot trees between each level. It eventually curved around a small dam, pond is probably a better word, and reached the back of the farm house. The house was unassuming and far from beautiful, objectively speaking; but in my memory it has a magical charm. It consisted of an old part built of wood, an unusual building material for houses in South Africa, and two newer parts of unpainted plastered brick. From this side it appeared long, squat and stretched out, without any apparent attention to an overall coherent design — I think it just grew. In the centre was the kitchen, jutting out from the house by about half its width, and containing the only door on this side. The main entrance was on the narrow south side to the left, and led across a wooden veranda into the gable end of the old timber structure. The veranda continued round the farther corner, and then along the length of the old part on the west side of the house. If the house had a front, this was probably it. A number of wild pepper trees grew close by and, with their feathery leaves and wide canopies, cast the veranda into a cool shade for most of the day. Further on, where the old part ended, the house gave over to the new brick structure, projecting beyond the wooden part on the far side; here were a storage room and a workshop. Another row of wild pepper trees formed an L with those growing along the house. At the far end of these a further row of trees, including a tall eucalyptus tree, formed the third side of a rectangle. This area was intended as a flower garden; but my parents never got that far in developing the farm.

My parents changed the use of the various parts of the house a number of times. At the end of our stay, the old part contained the entrance hall and my parents’ bedroom— this room was quite large — and the children’s bedroom. We children shared one room. The newer part, which ran parallel to the timber structure, contained the living room, the dining room and the kitchen. The newest part, beyond the kitchen, included a guest room, a storage room and a bathroom, which remained unfinished right to the end of the time we stayed on the farm. A workshop was also in that part of the house, but it was entered from the outside. My memory of the details of that area is somewhat hazy.

The kitchen was typical of the more primitive farm kitchens at that time and place. A wood burning cast iron stove was the only large appliance, not counting the hand-operated centrifuge used for separating cream from milk. We made our own butter. A pantry with double brick walls and double roof, with sawdust in between, kept foodstuff a little cooler than it would have been otherwise. The kitchen floor was covered in the traditional way of the floors of the Africans’ huts, namely with fresh cow dung smeared by hand on the floor in a thin layer and left to dry. It may seem odd, but this made a smooth odourless covering very pleasant to walk on. It was replaced every few weeks by our maid. This was typical of the kitchens on the farms all around.

There was no running water. Rain, collected off the roof in corrugated galvanized iron tanks at a few corners of the house, was used for drinking water. The roof was also of corrugated iron. Brackish ground water, pumped up by a windmill some distance from the house, was used for washing. There was also no electricity; we used kerosene lamps for lighting and, as mentioned above, wood in the stove in the kitchen. Heating was not necessary, with the possible exception during cool winter evenings. For this there was a fireplace in the living room. We had no telephone.

Map of South Africa, showing the major cities and the location of our farm.

The farm produced lucerne and apricots. My father also tried to grow almonds, but the trees never thrived because our soil was unsuitable; however, we usually did harvest a few bags for ourselves. The farm work was carried out by about a dozen Africans, directed by my father. There was an African maid to help in the kitchen and the house, but the cooking was done by my mother. Mules were used for plowing, harvesting, powering the machine which compacted the lucerne into bales, and for pulling both the farm wagon and our carriage. The last was a modified cape cart, which is a two-wheeled vehicle drawn by two horses — in our case two mules. We had no tractor, truck or any other motorized machinery. My father had a horse for getting around on the farm.

We kept a cow, which provided the milk for our own needs, a number of pigs, hens, ducks and rabbits. Once a year my parents slaughtered a few pigs and, in addition to using the meat fresh, made ham, bacon, sausages and salami for our own consumption. The hens were completely free-range, and collecting the eggs was almost like a daily Easter egg hunt. The ducks also waddled around free. I must not forget to mention our dog Troll and the cats, whose number varied; at one time we had nine.

Beyond the house the land continued to slope down until it reached the river, which formed the western boundary of the farm. My parents always referred to it as the Little Fish River, but close inspection of a map makes me think that it actually may have been the Tarka, a tributary of the Little Fish River. It ran there in a deep gully over and around big stones and boulders, normally not carrying much water. It could, however, come down in a flood after a heavy storm, filling the entire gully and the area beyond on both sides. Its steep sides and upper edges were overgrown with lush bushes, small trees and a variety of profuse ground covers in stark contrast to the dry land up above, forming what seemed to me then a veritable jungle. Seeing that I have to rely on what I can remember from the time when I was seven, the last time I saw it, it is difficult to estimate the true size of the river and its gully. But it must have been about 25 feet deep and 50 feet, if not more, wide. Beyond the river the ground sloped steeply up towards a low rocky and rugged row of hills. The railway line and road to Port Elizabeth ran along the lower part of the slope. The railway has since been rerouted, for which our farmhouse had to be pulled down.

Further north upstream across the river was the small settlement of Middleton, a little more than five miles away by dirt road. It was the nearest community to the farm, consisting of a railway station, post office, police station, general store, school, hotel, and the houses of the people who lived in Middleton. The buildings were scattered around the dusty open central area and towards the river as well as in a row parallel to the rail line a little distance up a hill. This hill was on the other side of the tracks towards the mountains and was covered with rocks, low heather-like shrubs here and there and various types of succulents. The school was also up that hill; it was the building furthest to the right in that row of houses.

Middleton is about 130 to 150 miles north of Port Elizabeth by road. In the 1930's this was almost a day’s journey and not lightly undertaken, because the road then was very rough. Except for the last short stretch into Port Elizabeth, it had a gravel surface with ruts and rocks and went over a tortuous pass through the Zuurberg Mountains. The train journey took also a long time, as I remember it.

My parents were probably the most unlikely people to settle on a farm in the Little Karroo. They both came from backgrounds that one normally does not associate with a lifestyle that was almost primitive. My father was born in Germany in 1886, in an era when life and people’s outlook were quite different from what they are now; in addition to which he was probably old-fashioned even for his time. He grew up during a period of intense nationalism in Europe — he was born only 15 years after Bismarck had united Germany. One should consider that when my father was in his formative years, Puccini was writing his operas and Thomas Hardy his novels; Wagner had died only a few years before then.

He was the second son of an upper middle class family from Offenbach, a city across the river Main from Frankfurt¹. His career was to be the army; he went through cadet school and was a major in the artillery in World War I. During the war he served in France and in Russia; but at the end of the war he was on the staff of the crown prince of the Kaiser. In the treaty of Versailles, after the end of the war, Germany was allowed an army of no more than 100,000 men. Discouraged, my father resigned from the army, but later found out that he could have been part of the 100,000. This was a blow to him, because he was very dedicated to the military, though the way I remember him, he was about the most atypical army officer. He was quiet — one can almost say introverted — gentle and cultured. I do not want to malign the military, but that is not the picture that now comes to my mind when I picture an officer. He seemed still to belong to the time when the obvious career choice of younger sons of gentlemen was to be an officer in the army.

His only sibling, Erwin, was killed within the first few weeks of World War I and his parents died very soon after that tragedy. My father had married sometime before 1914, but was no longer living with his wife when the war was over. This marriage was what one could almost call an arranged marriage. There was a son and daughter from this union; but I have never met them, nor do I remember their first names.

He and his family lost their wealth during the period of brutal inflation in Germany during the early twenties. Having thus lost his parents, brother, fortune, and career, he attended an agricultural college, obtained a diploma and became the manager of an estate in northern Germany. There he met my mother, who was the governess on a neighbouring estate. He obtained a divorce, which alienated him from his extended family, and married my mother. They bought the farm in 1927 through a fellow officer of my farther’s who was now in the real estate business in South Africa.

My mother was born in 1904 in Fraustadt near Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland); she was an only child. My maternal grandfather was one of seven sons of a large wealthy landowning family in Silesia. He never worked for a living in his life — the racetrack was more to his liking. He died when my mother was seven². After his death, my mother and grandmother moved to Hamburg; for what reason I do not know. They had lost their fortune through the extravagances of her father and then, what was left of his money, during the inflation in the early twenties. My mother attended finishing school and then became a governess.

My father and mother loved the finer things in life; before they left for Africa they used to go to the opera, attended concerts and plays, and dined in elegant restaurants. This was now changed for a primitive and hard-working existence in the bush.